


Absolution

by arcapelago (arcanewinter)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanewinter/pseuds/arcapelago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hank has been troubled for many nights now by nightmares of his own bestial nature and the harm he is capable of doing to others, even his closest friend.  Worried that he will someday enact the nightmares, he goes to Charles for permission to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_q](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_q/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Quiet Ones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/343050) by [a_q](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_q/pseuds/a_q). 



> This fic is a remix of a fic where a non-con/rape scene is described in fair detail. This fic makes reference to that event with less detail.

"Isolation? But why?"

Hank listened to Charles repeat the request he'd made, not entirely able to look at his face.

"The distraction," Hank lied. "I hear everything, and there are more students arriving every term."

"The lab is already soundproof," Charles answered gently. Hank saw him fold his hands in his lap. "We could do the same with your room? This request concerns me a great deal, Hank. We really do need you here."

There was a knock at the door, which sat ajar. Hank turned away reflexively, while Charles turned toward it. "A moment, Alex, if you could? Close the door behind you."

There was some hesitation, and Hank could all but feel Alex's eyes on him. Their relationship had improved since the early rivalry, but the tension between them never completely went away. Finally, he heard the door close quietly.

"Please sit, Hank."

Hank did, though reluctantly, and only because it was obvious he wasn't going to win this so easily.

"Now, tell me what's wrong."

Hank finally lifted his eyes to Charles'. Though Charles was gracious enough to allow deception, Hank didn't have the will to lie again. "I worry that I am a danger to others," he said, his voice suddenly thicker than it was even normally. He'd started having the dreams almost every night for the past two weeks. It felt like it was building up to something, something unthinkable.

Charles' shoulders settled into the back of his chair. His hands were still folded. "You worry about this form of yours. I can understand that. We are all wrongfully taught to judge by appearance, and we judge ourselves most harshly. But you know your own mind, Hank, and it is every bit as sharp with just as great a conscience as ever."

Hank almost crumbled right then. The more Charles spoke, the more he couldn't help but remember the unspeakable content of his dreams, the beast that he was, the harm that he had caused and the pleasure it had brought him. It wasn't even the enemy under his claws. The very voice that spoke so kindly to him now was the voice that cried out beneath him in each dream, always the same now.

"Some other place," he said, trying to hold his calm. "Where I can be alone. We'd have to move the laboratory; I have some personal money to cover the relocation."

Charles watched him sympathetically. "If that's what you want," he said, and relief replaced the unbearable weight on Hank's shoulders. He sighed and nodded, feeling imminently lighter.

"But it won't stop the dreams, I'm afraid."

Hank went quickly cold.

His voice felt solid in his chest, but he forced it out, incredulous, ashamed. "You know?"

Unbidden, the worst of it came back to him, Charles pinned beneath him, shuddering around his cruelty and feeling warm, so warm, bleeding, and going quiet.

Charles looked sincerely apologetic, but it didn't soften Hank's horror. "I'm sorry. The sleeping mind is so much more vocal, and in my case, attentive."

Hank grit his teeth. "Then you know why I can't stay here." The blood had rushed into his face, humiliation outweighing the anger of lost privacy. At the heart of him, he knew he deserved to feel like this. He was a monster, and his unconscious, uninhibited self had proved it. "I'll _hurt_ you, Charles."

His voice cracked as he said it, an ugly sound with a voice so deep, or so he thought as he finally bowed his head and nearly knocked the glasses from his face trying to cover it with a clawed hand.

Charles gave him his silence for a moment before the wheels of his chair creaked and Hank couldn't help but mentally follow the sound across the room, senses still sharp under a cloak of shame. There was the sound of something being poured, then again, before Charles returned to him.

"Drink up, my friend. It'll help."

Hank took it without really looking and tried to swallow it down; it was scotch and took several tries where one gulp would have conquered most anything else.

It did help. He was able to watch Charles wince the last of his down and he handed back the glass when Charles gestured for it. Charles set the two down on the desk beside him.

"So what do I do?" said Hank, calmer now, ready to accept whatever solution Charles handed him. Charles had a solution for everything, always fair, always practical.

But Charles' face was sadder than Hank expected. Was there no remedy for the dreams?

He realized Charles was much closer to him now than he'd been before he'd retrieved the drinks.

"Your dreams are not a premonition, Hank."

Not a premonition. Not an indication of things to come. That should have been a message of hope, but Charles' voice assured him it was not.

"They're a memory."

Hank's stomach clenched. It was slow at first, then with such a force that he was almost sick, and couldn't breathe.

"I was in hospital for about a week," Charles went on, so evenly he might as well have been telling the story of a broken leg he'd received as a boy. "We both were, actually, as I was rather too unconscious to stop them from taking you."

Hank still couldn't process it. He felt like everything from his head to his gut was shutting down, numb and cold and dead like stone. Still it didn't stop the realization that Charles was referring to a different kind of hospital in his case.

"I thought it kinder to erase it from your memory," Charles said, but it had started to take on the tone of someone speaking to himself. "But these things sometimes emerge again in the subconscious."

He wanted to say it was impossible. He could never do such a thing, never hurt someone like that, least of all Charles. But he had come into this room ready to take steps to prevent it. He had already accepted that it could happen.

"Why did you let me stay?" he said, his voice a scrape of sandpaper.

"Your transformation had only just occurred," Charles replied, too easily. "I had a feeling the worst had already happened, and that you would only improve. I regret to say I watched you incredibly closely, invasively, for the first few months, to be sure of it. If I'd been wrong, I would have taken action for everyone's protection. But I was not."

"But how could you--"

Charles shrugged, interrupting his stammer, but gently. "I do not wish to prolong your pain, Hank. You have a decision to make."

Hank met his eyes, transfixed by their steeled expression. A decision? To leave or to stay?

No. Hank could never stay, knowing this. And Charles would be well aware of that.

To keep this knowledge or give it up again, that was the question.

Hank blinked at his friend, slowly, aware that he was now living in a twilight. All of this would be gone in a moment. Nothing said or done here was real, in a way.

Charles lifted his fingers to his own temple, but did not press them there, not yet. Hank did nothing to stop him. He already knew that he couldn't live with this knowledge. He would not live with it.

"You weren't in a chair in the dreams," said Hank, quietly, knowing the twilight was slipping away. He heard the words he was saying, but could no longer feel them. "Were you even hurt in Cuba?"

Charles' expression was difficult to read behind the smile. "It's all right, Hank."

Charles pressed his fingers against his temple, and the rest of the room faded to white before everything was gone.

* * *

When Hank slumped in the chair too small for him, Charles wished he could have moved him to the couch, but even at his fittest he couldn't have lifted him, not even when his personal safety had required it of him. The best he could do was roll his chair a bit closer to him and adjust his head so it wouldn't weigh so uncomfortably on his neck.

"It'll last longer this time," he said softly, squeezing the large, strong shoulder. "I promise."


End file.
